


They Had it Coming

by Cantatrice18



Category: Incredibles (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 14:57:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15512331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: Mirage never intended to become a murderer. The Supers knew what they were getting into. Their deaths were fair, the risks were calculated. But children - they were something else entirely.





	They Had it Coming

They had it coming. Mirage told herself that, each time another Super ended up as nothing more than shreds of a costume or charred remains scattered across the jungle. They’d chosen their assignment. She’d spoken to each and every one, on the phone and in person, assuring them that the challenge facing them on the island was one of immense danger. All of them had agreed to battle the Omnidroid with varying levels of determination and arrogance. Their confidence in their powers was almost disappointing. None of them ever thought themselves beatable by a mere machine. And yet, as the secret records held in Syndrome’s computer could attest, every last one of them was wrong.

She regretted some. Gazerbeam’s death remained with her, even months after his unfortunate demise. He had managed to evade the robot by hiding in an underground cave protected by a waterfall. Unable to attack normally, the robot had released a heat-seeking smoke bomb into the cave, asphyxiating the Super in less than ten minutes. She remembered Gazerbeam, not because of any special prowess on the battlefield, but because of how he’d accepted the assignment in the first place. Most Supers were eager to fight again, but Gazer had taken on the challenge with the tired reluctance of a soldier who knows it is his duty to fight, but who longs for peace. Perhaps he’d been better off dying swiftly and painlessly in a cave, rather than being drawn and quartered by an insect-like metal monster. 

Still, they had it coming. They were no innocents, sent unprepared into the fray. Even when Syndrome turned his missiles on an unknown government jet, she still believed that their opponents, Super or otherwise, knew the risks. Until she heard the transmission.

_Abort, abort: there are children aboard. Say again, there are children aboard this aircraft._

It struck her then what must have happened, what had been inevitable from the moment they’d begun eliminating Supers in the name of progress. A decade had passed since the Supers went underground – plenty of time for Supers to settle down, marry, begin families of their own. The torture on Mr. Incredible’s face said everything. For whatever foolish reason, his wife and their children had decided to follow him to the island, to rescue him from a danger they knew absolutely nothing about. Super or otherwise, Mr. Incredible’s wife had not been issued the challenge: take down the robot, or die trying. And their children . . . 

Pain and sorrow tore through her consciousness, silently screaming for her to stop this madness, this butchery of innocent lives. She had not accepted Syndrome’s offer of wealth, power, resources, to become a murderess. Not of children. 

The missiles struck home. On her screen the bright LED that represented the jet and its passengers winked out. The screen went dark. Mirage stood, unable to feel her limbs, numb. She heard her heels clack against the stone floor, a distant noise disconnected from reality. She delivered the news of the jet’s destruction in a monotone. Syndrome’s laugh grated on her, a gloating chuckle devoid of remorse. He turned his back on his devastated prisoner, content with his glib parting shot, and began to leave. Mirage couldn’t bear to look away from Mr. Incredible, which was how she spotted the gleam in his eye, the spark of rage. Instinct took over: years of partnership with Syndrome, and perhaps a deep desire not to bear witness to another death that day, caused her to fling her own body at Syndrome’s, knocking him to the ground. Only when iron bars of muscle closed around her narrow ribs did she realize what she’d done.

She’d always been afraid of death. Most rational people were, but she at least wasn’t fool enough to deny it the way so many Supers did. She was not brave, nor was she physically strong. As she dangled helplessly from Mr. Incredible’s arms, knowing how little it would take for him to tear her apart, that fear resurfaced with a vengeance. Yet even in that moment, she understood why she deserved to die at his hand. She had taken everything from him. She had stood by and watched as his family had been blown out of the sky. She was pressed so close to his chest she could feel it vibrate as he growled out his threats. Syndrome only laughed, daring the Super to end her life, to break her delicate body into pieces the way the jet had fragmented minutes ago. For a fleeting second she thought Mr. Incredible might do it, but then his muscles went limp. She fell to the ground with a thud, the impact enough to leave bruises. Looking back at Syndrome, she saw his gloating expression had not shifted in the slightest. The idea of losing her barely registered. She was nothing to him. Hurt joined the mire of guilt and self-reproach that had engulfed her heart. If she meant so little to him, why did she bother? Why put herself through this for a man who would watch her get ripped to pieces and not lift a hand to save her? 

Those questions would have to wait until after the launch. There was work to be done, a project she’d spent long years perfecting. Hopefully the numbers and figures would fill the awful cavity where her heart had been, and let her forget the image of a pair of lifeless children falling from the sky into the embrace of an unforgiving sea.


End file.
